L.A. Unified Criticized Over Grants Handling

The cash-short Los Angeles Unified School District has drawn fire for its handling of two financial windfalls, bungling the application for a $15-million National Science Foundation grant and causing the donor of an unprecedented $10-million gift to high school athletic programs to question the district’s management.

Los Angeles, which submitted an application that one expert said was shoddily written and lacked focus, was one of only two urban school districts rejected by the National Science Foundation. New York and Chicago were both awarded up to $15 million to help revamp the way math and science are taught, one of the largest education aid packages in the nation.

At the same time, officials with the Food 4 Less Foundation, which last year pledged $10 million for athletics, have withheld payment on the second installment of the donation after discovering that the district had let about $260,000 sit unused for months.

“I don’t think that is what we had in mind,” said Darius Anderson, vice president of government and communications for Food 4 Less.

The district’s handling of the two grants shows a lack of coordination and sophistication among top administrators, who are scrambling to salvage the relationship with their biggest donor and rushing to save face with a rewritten application for the science grant, said several key education leaders.

“This is another example of what happens when things are assigned bureaucratically,” rather than turned into “red alert” priority issues, said Mike Roos, president of the LEARN reform effort. He said district leadership often lacks “strategic vision” when it comes to handling such major projects.

In an interview Tuesday, Supt. Sid Thompson accepted responsibility for what he called “a major mistake” in the handling of the National Science Foundation grant, saying he should have more closely supervised the application.

“Hey, if I have to take a hit, then go for it,” Thompson said. “The facts are the facts and I’m not going to find an alibi.”

However, Thompson firmly denied that the district mishandled the Food 4 Less donation and suggested that foundation officials may be questioning the district as a way to renege on their pledge.

“I believe there are some problems in terms of trying to meet the commitment,” Thompson said. “They owed us the second installment in January and they asked for a delay until March. They didn’t tell me they wanted to delay because ‘we don’t trust what you are doing.’ . . . They didn’t give us the second installment, and what does that tell you?”

Denial of the prestigious science grant, at a time when the district is in the midst of reform efforts partly aimed at boosting the teaching of science and math, is an embarrassing blow, some sources said.

“The fact that we didn’t get this grant is a serious concern,” said school board President Leticia Quezada. “As far as I’m concerned there is no reason why we should not get it.”

Foundation officials would not discuss the official reason for rejecting the district’s 32-page application. The National Science Foundation plans to send the district a detailed analysis of the proposal’s weaknesses and has assigned consultants to help Los Angeles get it right the second time around.

Foundation officials said they are confident that Los Angeles will be awarded the money despite the setback.

“The foundation has a very rigorous review process,” said Madeleine Long, the foundation officer supervising the grants. “ . . . What we are after is difficult business. We are asking for total school reform in math and science.”

Four grant-writing experts who have seen the Los Angeles application said the document did not clearly present innovative ideas for improving math and science classes for the district’s 640,000 students.

“It was: Give us the money, we’ll convene meetings and out of the meetings a plan will emerge and all good things will follow from that. . . . My feeling is that is not good enough,” said George Castro, a scientist with IBM who was selected by the foundation to work as a grant consultant for school districts.

A former grant writer for the district who is now a private consultant to school districts across the country was more blunt:

“It was shocking--it was like a salad with a lot of ingredients mixed together that don’t taste well,” said the expert, who requested anonymity. “It was a shabbily presented document and it was very disorganized. . . . And (it) was turned in to a gold-plated organization that wants to see good ideas.”

Los Angeles had been given a $100,000 stipend from the science foundation to research and write the grant. In an effort to bring talented teachers into policy-making circles, Thompson said, he allowed two math and science instructors to write the grant. Although highly respected for their classroom know-how, they had no background in the art of big-time grant writing. In retrospect, Thompson said Tuesday, he should have used professional grant writers.

The future of the Food 4 Less donation, a historic pact between the district and a private donor, remains muddled. Last year the foundation pledged nearly $10 million over three years to breathe new life into high school athletic programs that were about to fall victim to the budget-cutting ax.

Food 4 Less officials said Tuesday that they are unhappy with the way their money has been handled and are asking for changes.

“We handed over a significant amount of money, and then there wasn’t any client management,” said Anderson, who is overseeing the grant for Food 4 Less. “We’re still committed, but it’s going to be in a different manner.”

Anderson said the foundation in no way intends to renege on its financial obligation but is waiting to iron out details on a new program, which will be broadened to include other needy programs.

The foundation had agreed that half of its annual $3-million donation would cover the major share of the district’s $3.7-million athletic budget for 1993-94. That money was earmarked to cover extra transportation costs, added police security and the rental of outdoor bleachers. The other half of the contribution was to be split among the schools and be used for equipment, uniforms and other essentials for 22 sports.

Anderson said that when he began evaluating the “Save Sports” program in January, he found that the schools had not received their shares. Principals and athletic directors began calling his office asking about the delay, he said.

Thompson, however, said the district did not delay the money and used part of it to fund winter sports. The rest was waiting to be distributed to schools until principals and coaches could figure out how to fairly divide the money.

Another problem proved to be the distribution of Food 4 Less patches to be worn on game jerseys. Anderson said 14,000 patches that were supposed to be sent to schools were left in a warehouse.

He said the district should have put someone in charge of managing the largest corporate account it had ever received and did not follow through on its pledge to attract other corporate donors.

“Too many things were falling through the cracks that shouldn’t have,” he said.